Student housing is often a joyless pursuit in New York. Columbia University students grumble about the process in a recent editorial, there’s the story of Alyssa Abkowitz who “reveals the secrets (and sadness) of living in a Chelsea women’s dorm: communal showers, peanut butter sandwiches and no boys allowed” for the New York Press in February, and long gone are the days of getting a room and two meals a day for $8.50 a week. (The year was 1923 to be exact.)

Which is why we’re so proud of our own residences here at 92Y de Hirsch Residence. We offer private rooms at a cultural organization that’s been creating community since 1874. There is 24/7 security, free wi-fi, free housekeeping and linen service, special discounts to the 92Y’s full service gym and pool, and of course, you will be living in Manhattan, near great cultural institutions, Central Park, restaurants, and more. You’ll even run into people like Tom Cruise and Anna Wintour walking the halls. But don’t take our word for it. Watch the video above featuring residents of de Hirsch residents talking about how much they like it here.

For complete information, visit the link below, call us at 212.415.5650, or send an email.

Today, we have more Jazz in July audio for you, courtesy of our friends at NPR. Kurt Elling was their pick for Song of the Day, with his track Lush Life. Kurt will carry the vocals in Jazz in July on Jul 21 for our Sondheim & Styne concert.

Relatedly, Jazz Improv Magazine wrote a wonderful article on Jazz in July in their latest issue, as seen in the screen capture above. You can read that here on page 60, in a PDF.

As part of their agenda while here in New York City, the group traveled to Jackson Heights, Queens where Alison Gardy, director of international relations at 92Y told the Daily News: “I hope they’ll see how diverse communities can work toward common goals. People live together here that could not live together back home. And they make it work.”

That’s certainly one of Grace Yeanay’s goals. She runs an organization that helps Liberian women get out of prostitution and poverty by teaching them marketable skills. Often, the women are from feuding tribes.

She was impressed by how different immigrant groups in the U.S. successfully live in the same communities.

“Everyone is different, everyone has their own ideas and all of those ideas can come together,” said Yeanay, 34, executive director of Young Women Organized for Sustainable Development.

Galit Toledano-Harris, 47, executive director of the Youth Renewal Fund in Israel, was similarly impressed with the area.

“It was a totally different experience,” she said of the tour. “There’s a place for everybody.”

So much happens here at 92Y and 92YTribeca that you might find it hard to keep up with it all. So we’re going to make a cheat sheet for you and highlight some of the things we were talking about this week.

It’s A Drag: Queen Christina, I Was a Male War Bride, Tootsie and Some Like it Hot. Explore and discuss how the cinema treats the subject of sex and circumvents or abides by the censorship laws of the times.

Seduction with Howard Oboler, MA: Explore and discuss how the cinema treats the subject of sex and circumvents or abides by the censorship laws of the times. Films discussed: Baby Face, Double Indemnity, From Here to Eternity and To Have and Have Not.

Johnny Rockets and the 92nd Street Y Take Camps Kids to Yankees Opening Day Weekend

As we noted previously, restaurant chain Johnny Rockets is a supporter of 92Y’s summer camps and scholarships, and provided tickets to the Opening Weekend Yankees game on April 17, 2009. That morning, there was a ribbon cutting ceremony in front of one of the Johnny Rockets locations at Yankee Stadium with approximately 30 of the Y camp kids, who were also treated to a special lunch by Johnny Rockets. It was a wonderful day with amazing weather and the Yankees won! Flickr user Affiliate has more photos from opening day at Yankee Stadium here, and you can see a few more photos of the Camps kids below.

Craft in America is PBS’s Emmy Award nominated and Peabody Award winning show. They are currently criss-crossing the country shooting two new episodes, and guess where they stopped by? That’s right. Their camera crews were here in our studios documenting the work of our students and teachers:

Episode V, “Process,” looks at what inspires a person to choose a career in craft and shows how they go about acquiring the knowledge and necessary skills. Artists and institutions featured include New York City’s 92nd Street Y, Professor Cary Esser, of the Kansas City Art Institute, and Nikki Lewis, a recent graduate of her ceramics program, Miguel Gómez-Ibáñez, the director of Boston’s North Bennet Street School which has been training people for employment in the crafts since 1885, book artists Julie Chen and Tom Killion, and jewelers David and Roberta Williamson of Berea, Ohio. The episode also looks at some of best and most interesting artists who turned to craft later in life as a second career.

The episodes will be airing this fall. Beverly Sanders of American Craft Magazine tagged along for the shooting, and wrote an extensive and engaging piece from her viewpoint as observer of the observing, offering a sort of behind the back look at behind the scenes. Talk about the inside scoop! She wrote:

What inspires a person to choose a career in craft and how does he or she go about acquiring the knowledge and necessary skills? And how does a serious documentarian capture the process on film? I was happily privy to the process by hanging out for a day with Carol Sauvion, the amiable producer of the Emmy Award-nominated and Peabody Award-winning PBS series Craft in America, which premiered in 2007, when she and her crew came to New York City the weekend of March 6, to film a segment of the next installment at the 92nd Street Y in Manhattan.

...As I watched the film crew shoot a jewelry workshop of six people conducted by Paul Kim, and later a stone-setting workshop with Klaus Bürgel, Seeger explained what he is striving to achieve in the film. “Get as much detail as possible in the process of going from learning to the career stage.” The object, he said, “ is to get next to people and suggest what they are thinking. Most people are voyeurs. This [film] gives people the sense that they too can dream. It presents an image of the creative spirit.” The film is not meant to be a “museum piece” showing off fine work, Seeger continues, but of course they will show finished work at the end—“a payoff.”

And how’s this for the inside scoop...We bet you never knew about the “[SUNY] New Paltz mafia” in the metalsmithing world, but that secret is out now thanks to Beverly’s article.

In the meantime, if you crave even more Inside The Crafting Studio videos, we’ve been down there with our video camera as well. And though we haven’t won any Emmy Awards, (yet) the videos offer a nice behind the scenes look at what is going on. In this video, we stopped by a ceramics class and talk with an instructor. And here we show you a little bit of what happens in a jewelry class. You can check out all of the arts classes we offer here.

High School Guitar Day: Benjamin Verdery of the Yale School of Music leads the 92nd Street Y’s second High School Guitar Day, bringing together high school guitar students from the greater New York area to participate in performances and workshops. FREE.

Student housing is often a joyless pursuit in New York. Columbia University students grumble about the process in an editorial today, there’s the story of Alyssa Abkowitz who “reveals the secrets (and sadness) of living in a Chelsea women’s dorm: communal showers, peanut butter sandwiches and no boys allowed” for the New York Press in February, and long gone are the days of getting a room and two meals a day for $8.50 a week. (The year was 1923 to be exact.)

For students and interns having a hard time finding safe, clean, affordable housing in New York City, the 92nd Street Y’s de Hirsch Residence can save the day. Residents get access to one of the city’s best gyms as well as all the world-class concerts, lectures (maybe get your picture taken with Tom Cruise?) and classes they can handle, not to mention the opportunity to make some interesting new friends. Former de Hirsch residents include:

Harry Connick, Jr.: The Tony Award-nominated actor and singer’s first home in New York was here at the Y, in a room like the one pictured above.

Country crooner Woody Bradshaw moved in to the Y before landing an acting role on an ABC daytime drama.